'Football Manager 2012' review (PC)

Also available on: MacDeveloper: Sports InteractivePublisher: SegaGenre: Football Management

Football Manager has amassed a dedicated following over the years with its depth, complexity and extensive licencing agreements. While the FIFA series must continuously evolve to compete with Pro Evolution Soccer, Sports Interactive's award-winner has seen little competition from rival Championship Manager of late, but that doesn't mean the developers have grown complacent.

The 2012 iteration of the footy management simulation contains all of the usual refinements and tweaks, but few radical overhauls. Sports Interactive has invested much of its resources in making the game more accessible to newcomers with a brand new tutorial system and streamlined menu navigation. That's not to say it has been watered down. The tactics, scouting and man-management components remain as thorough as ever. Significant work has also gone into improving the 3D match engine, which looked about as hi-tech as Harrogate Town's stadium in previous versions.

Football Manager has always held a mirror to the real-life game and reflected it as accurately as possible. Playing as Everton, we fielded pre-season questions from the media about whether we would be tabling a bid for Landon Donovan, and tried to operate as best we could on the shoestring budget David Moyes has to get by with. You'll spend your pre-season convincing the big names that the club is capable of attracting top-class players, selling off the dead wood and searching the globe for new talent via the robust scouting system. Choosing a formation and individual training repertoires is like balancing a complex equation, but long-term fans thrive on this kind of attention to detail.

Watch the Football Manager 2012 trailer below:

The transfer center has been revamped. Offers made on your players have been grouped onto a single page, eliminating the need to click 'reject' for every individual offer you have received for one of your players. During contract discussions with potential signings, you can now offer loyalty bonuses as an added incentive, and lock down areas of negotiation to stonewall money-grabbing agents. Team talks and interaction with individual players is one area that has been revolutionised via the introduction of the new 'Tone System'. Players can choose between aggressive, assertive, passionate, calm, cautious and reluctant during exchanges with their team members, and the results of each can be both rewarding and costly. Spurring your squad on with a passionate halftime pep talk can be the difference between FA Cup glory and heartbreak.

Football Manager 2012 panders to its fanbase with all of the usual additions you would expect from a new entry in the series, but it's clear that Sports Interactive is heavily focused on introducing newcomers to the fold with this iteration. The biggest obstacle it had to work around here was the game's intimidating level of depth and the sheer volume of stats and menus involved.

The developer has counter-balanced this with a more thorough tutorial system. There's a separate training mode that newbies can cut their teeth on before jumping into the game, and omnipresent handholding throughout the early stages, should they require it. This comes in the shape of comprehensive help boxes on every screen. It certainly breaks the interface down into bite-sized chunks, but there will always be a section of the gaming community deterred by how stat-heavy the series has become.

Matches are the usual combination of dramatic late winners, ill-deserved defeats and bore draws. With the improvements to the 3D engine they look better than in earlier versions, but could still pass for the previous generation. There is more animation than in the 2011 edition and new camera angles to watch the action from, yet it's a stretch to say that these refinements make it visually impressive.

An internet connection is required to play Football Manager 2012 (not that you'll find many households without one these days) as Steam activation is a necessity. Publisher Sega insisted on this measure to combat piracy, but has allowed players to run the game offline once they have registered their copy.

Football Manager 2012 has a vast fanbase eagerly awaiting it to arrive on the market, and the diehards will know exactly what to expect. It's crammed with all of the usual tweaks and refinements, as well as some shrewd streamlining. With an improved tutorial system, this is the most accessible entry in the series for some time, but there will still be those who yearn for the days when the football management title wasn't so bloated with stats and options.